Ring employees reportedly had access to all live and recorded customer videos (Updated)

Ring, the smart home device startup Amazon acquired for $1 billion in March 2018, reportedly has a security problem: Some of its employees were given unfettered access to footage from customers' security cameras. The Intercept, citing an anonymous source, today reported that beginning in 2016, Ring provided its Ukraine-based research and development division -- Ring Labs -- access to a folder on Amazon's S3 cloud storage service containing every video recorded by every Ring camera around the world. Moreover, it says that team members were provided a database linking each video to corresponding Ring customers. Downloading the files wouldn't have required more than a few clicks, the publication notes -- they weren't encrypted, reportedly because Ring leadership believed it would be too costly and would rule out future revenue opportunities. News of Ring's lax security practices emerged late last year, but The Intercept's report pulls back the curtain on specific lapses.